zetetic: proceeding by inquiry; investigating.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 05, 2010 is:

Sisyphean • \sis-uh-FEE-un\  • adjective
: of, relating to, or suggestive of the labors of Sisyphus; specifically : requiring continual and often ineffective effort

Example sentence:
Considering the inherently fickle nature of golf, defending a title is, no doubt, as Sisyphean a task as any in the sport. (Anthony Cuaycong, BusinessWorld, July 2008)

Did you know?
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who annoyed the gods with his trickery. As a consequence, he was condemned for eternity to roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill in the underworld, only to watch it roll back down. The story of Sisyphus is often told in conjunction with that of Tantalus, who was condemned to stand beneath fruit-laden boughs, up to his chin in water. Whenever he bent his head to drink, the water receded, and whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches moved beyond his grasp. Thus to tantalize is to tease or torment by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach -- and something Sisyphean (or Sisyphian, pronounced \sih-SIFF-ee-un\) demands unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts.

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Today's word from the OED has the following earliest quotation: 1426 LYDG. De Guil. Pilgr. 23985 Our noble Visitour, Which doth his peyne and his labour to looke for lucre and fals guerdoun.

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degage: unconstrained; easy, as in manner or style.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 04, 2010 is:

bona fides • \boh-nuh-FYE-deez\  • noun
1 : good faith : sincerity 2 : evidence of one's good faith or genuineness *3 : evidence of one's qualifications or achievements

Example sentence:
If you still have doubts about Rob’s bona fides as a lawyer, you should hear all the good things his past clients have said about him.

Did you know?
Bona fides looks like a plural word in English, but in Latin, it's a singular noun that literally means good faith. When bona fides entered English, it at first stayed very close to its Latin use -- it was found mostly in legal contexts and it meant honesty or lawfulness of purpose, just as it did in Latin. It also retained its singular construction. Using this original sense one might speak of a claimant whose bona fides is unquestionable, for example. But in the 20th century, use of bona fides began to widen, and it began to appear with a plural verb in certain contexts. For example, a sentence such as the informant's bona fides were ascertained is now possible.

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Today's word from the OED has the following earliest quotation: 1924 Los Angeles Times 6 Jan. II. 9/7, I believe very definitely that broadcasting as constituted today is commercially sound,..although there may be selective methods and narrow-cast methods which will do no harm.

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cachinnate: to laugh loudly or immoderately.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 03, 2010 is:

clitic • \KLIT-ik\  • noun
: a word that is treated in pronunciation as forming a part of a neighboring word and that is often unaccented or contracted

Example sentence:
In what's happening? the s in what's is a clitic.

Did you know?
We hear clitics every day in sentences like This'll be fine and C'mon over here. There are two kinds of clitics: enclitics and proclitics. An enclitic is a clitic that is associated with the word that comes before it. Contractions, such as the ve in would've and the ll in it'll, are enclitics. A proclitic is associated with the word that follows it. Proclitics are transcribed into print far less often than enclitics are, but we hear them frequently in speech. For example, the sentence They love to dance is typically pronounced with the to truncated to a t that gets tacked onto the front of dance.

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Today's word from the OED has the following earliest quotation: a1225 Ancr. R. 220 I{edh}e desert..he lette ham {th}olien wo inouh.

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bilocation: the state of being or the ability to be in two places at the same time.

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